Record Review Podcast

Erik Levi chooses his favourite recording of Leoš Janáček's String Quartet No 1 'Kreutzer Sonata'Composed in only nine days in 1923, Janáček's compact, emotionally supercharged String Quartet No 1 takes its title from Leo Tolstoy’s 1889 novella where a wife and her violinist lover play Beethoven’s 'Kreutzer' Sonata together before the jealous husband murders his adulterous wife. Janáček's music roils with the conflicted passions of tormented love, desire and jealously of Tolstoy's story. But there was emotional turmoil in Janáček's life, too. Long-fed up with his wife, in 1915 Janáček had fallen deeply in love with Kamila Stösslová who, happily married and 40 years his junior, made sure that Janáček's love remained unrequited. And if that was unfortunate for Janáček, it was surely lucky for us as he poured his feelings for Stösslová into music which blazes with a truly exceptional emotional intensity.

Kate Kennedy chooses her favourite recording of Britten's Peter GrimesThe opera Peter Grimes is set in a fictional small town that bears some resemblance to Britten's home of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, on England's east coast. It is a drama about outsiders and oppression. As Britten himself said, it was "a subject very close to my heart – the struggle of the individual against the masses. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual". The score is full of great orchestral descriptions of the Suffolk coast and highly dramatic confrontations.

Hannah French has been listening to recordings - old and new - of Handel's Water Music, whittling them down until she can herald the ultimate version to buy, download or stream.

Marina Frolova-Walker chooses her favourite recording of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.

Building a Library: Kenneth Hamilton chooses his favourite recording of Chopin's Piano Concerto No 2 in F minor.Frédéric Chopin composed this glorious concerto in 1829 when he was 20 and before he had finished his formal education. It was first performed in Warsaw, with the composer as soloist. It was actually the first of his two piano concertos to be written. Like all Chopin's works, it is full of haunting melodies and thrilling piano writing. The nocturnal middle movement in particular is a golden moment, inspired by Chopin's romantic idolization of Konstancja Gładkowska.

David Owen Norris chooses his favourite recording of William Walton's Viola Concerto.It was conductor Sir Thomas Beecham's suggestion that Walton should write a viola concerto for the virtuoso Lionel Tertis. But things did not go according to plan when Tertis sent back the music by return of post saying it was 'too modern'. So the 1929 premiere was given by Paul Hindemith (who had been sent the concerto by the BBC's Edward Clark) at the Queen's Hall, just around the corner from Broadcasting House. It was a success and Tertis, in the audience, relented. But although he subsequently played the concerto, Tertis continued to disparage it and was heard to say that Walton had 'murdered' the viola.Despite its inauspicious beginning, Walton's Viola Concerto has long been recognised as one of his most important early works and is well established a cornerstone of an albeit limited repertoire. Perhaps the root of its appeal is to be found in its dedication 'to Christabel', the lyrical melancholy and poetic longing at t

Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony with Gillian MooreOlivier Messiaen's only symphony was written for an orchestra of enormous forces. The title comes from two Sanskrit words. "Lîla" means play in the sense of the divine action upon the cosmos. It also means love. "Turanga" is the time that runs, like a galloping horse and that flows, like sand in an hourglass; it's both movement and rhythm. The meaning of "Turangalîla" was best summed up by Messian himself as "a love song; a hymn to joy." He described the joy of Turangalîla as "superhuman, overflowing, blinding, unlimited".

Mozart's 'Dissonance' Quartet is the last of a set of six famously dedicated by Mozart to his 'very dear friend' Joseph Haydn. Soon after he arrived in Vienna in 1781, Mozart came to know Haydn's recently published Op. 33 set of innovatory string quartets which, said Haydn, had been composed in ‘a new and special way'. It was no idle boast. Not only more concentrated and sophisticated than any previous string quartet, the Op. 33s also employed all four instruments in a more equal, conversational style than ever before.For Mozart, responding to the Op. 33s with his own set of quartets became a longer and more arduous compositional challenge than any other he ever undertook. The 'Dissonance' got its nickname in the 19th-century, well after Mozart's death, on account of its mysterious slow introduction, with its complex and unsettling harmonies. It caps the set of six which impressed its dedicatee so much that, shortly after the 1785 premiere, Haydn declared to Leopold Mozart that 'Before God and as an honest ma

Beethoven's 23rd piano sonata is stormy and intense, so earned the nickname "Appassionata" or "Passionate". Pianist Iain Burnside has been listening to a wide range of recordings, old and new, to pick the ultimate version to buy, download or stream.

Purcell's magnum opus was written as a series of masques to be performed at the end of the acts of a special version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Arguably the greatest British composer before the 20th century, Purcell left us a tantalizing array of music for use in theatrical productions, which shows what an unsurpassed gift he had for matchings words and mood with music. Apart from the small-scale masterpiece, Dido and Aeneas, none of these pieces quite hangs together as a satisfying work of music theatre. The Fairy Queen is the closest we have to that. Written in a hybrid form of spoken drama and masque, it is notoriously difficult to bring off on the stage. But it is ideal for home listening. Nicholas Kenyon sifts through a strong field of some of the greatest names in baroque performance.

Yshani Perinpanayagam chooses her favourite recording of Debussy's Images for Orchestra.Composed between 1906 and 1912, Images is Debussy’s final concert work for orchestra. Over its three sections it abundantly displays his customary sophistication and flair for orchestral sonorities and for painting pictures in sound. The first and last parts of the triptych are folk-inflected: the enigmatic Gigues quotes 'The Keel Row' from Northumberland and two French folk tunes feature in Rondes de printemps. The middle (and most often performed) section, Ibéria, is itself a triptych. Even though Debussy famously spent no more than an afternoon in Spain, Ibéria's three movements conjure up the sights, sounds and smells of Spain so evocatively that even his Spanish contemporaries were impressed.

Emily MacGregor chooses her favourite recording of Shostakovich's String Quartet No 8 in C minor. Written at white heat in just three days, Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet is also his most personal - indeed, it opens with a form of the composer's own initials. Emily has been listening to recordings from throughout the quartet's life - from its first performers to young ensembles of the present day.

Ben Gernon chooses his favourite recording of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No 2.This concerto is full of glorious melodies and deserves a place in everyone's collection. Prokofiev was on a concert tour when he wrote the piece and later wrote, "the number of places in which I wrote the Concerto shows the kind of nomadic concert tour life I led then. The main theme of the 1st movement was written in Paris, the first theme of the 2nd movement at Voronezh, the orchestration was finished in Baku and the premiere was given in Madrid." The concerto is more conventional than Prokofiev's early experimental works and its romantic heart has made it a perennial favourite.

Edward Seckerson chooses his favourite recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor.More often than not, Mahler's symphonies end positively, whether in triumph, exaltation, joyful exuberance, quiet bliss, or resignation and acceptance. But the Sixth is unique in its tragic, minor-key conclusion and this Symphony as a whole is among his darkest music. Intriguingly, he wrote it during one of the happiest periods of his life, the summers of 1903 and 1904. Mahler was convinced that, in his music, he had the ability to foresee and even predict events and, painful though it might be, as an artist he could not avoid doing so. And in 1907, when he looked back on the Sixth Symphony's finale with its 'three hammer blows of fate' he could point to the death of his daughter Maria, the diagnosis of the severe heart disease which would kill him, and the bitter end of his decade as director of the Vienna Opera. Closer to our own times, some have suggested that, as well as tragic autobiography, Mahler was predicting the t

Lucy Parham chooses her favourite recording of Rachmaninov's 24 piano preludes.Rachmaninov's 24 piano preludes in all the 24 major and minor keys are a glorious treasure trove of different pianistic styles from lyrical to barn-storming. He wrote and published them at different times, and didn't regard them as a unified set. Unlike the keyboard preludes of Bach and Chopin they are not organized according to their keys either. But for a feast of piano playing, they are an essential thing for your library. And some of the titans of the keyboard have recorded their interpretations, including the composer himself how recorded a selection of them.

Tom Service chooses his favourite recording of Beethoven's Symphony No 9 in D minor.Beethoven's final complete symphony is one of the summits of classical music. The famous final movement features four vocal soloists and a chorus in a setting of the "Ode to Joy" by Friedrich Schiller. Many of the world's greatest conductors and orchestras have tackled this musical Everest including Furtwangler, Toscanini and Karajan alongside conductors of later generations like Mackerras and Harnoncourt and it still inspires new recordings from today's performers.

Jeremy Sams chooses his favourite recording of Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A minor.Ravel was living in the Basque country not far from the town where he was born when completed his Piano Trio in 1914, just after the outbreak of World War I, far away from the front line. But there are no grim premonitions in this music and its lush harmonic sound world, full of Basque dance patterns and playful rhythmic sleights of hand, is characterised by the sort of lavish instrumental textures so typical of this master orchestrator. And based on Classical structures (Ravel joked "I’ve written my trio. Now all I need are the themes."), including a haunting passacaglia as its emotional centre of gravity, the Trio is a deeply satisfying musical journey which needs outstanding musicians to meet its exacting demands.

Natasha Loges chooses her favourite recording of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467 ('Elvira Madigan').Perhaps the only piece of music to be named after a Swedish slack line dancer, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 gained its soubriquet after its remarkable slow movement was used as part of the soundtrack to the 1967 film Elvira Madigan. But circus acts or no, this concerto from 1785 is Mozart at the absolute height of his powers, the foremost pianist-composer of his day, breaking new ground with a series of concertos whose musical depth, virtuosity, inventiveness, woodwind writing and symphonic scale were all unprecedented.There are literally hundreds of recordings of this great work, many made by the giants of 20th- and 21st-century piano-playing on modern pianos. But intriguingly, there is a much smaller, if growing number made by musicians who use instruments of the period, allowing us to hear the extraordinary range of colours and textures conjured up by Mozart and which he himself would hav

William Mival chooses his favourite recording of Richard Strauss's symphonic poem Don Juan.In Strauss's Don Juan, the infamous libertine bursts onto the stage with a dazzling flourish. The following 16 minutes are no less compelling, the irresistible, swaggering Don superbly evoked through sumptuous and virtuosic orchestration, including tender violin and oboe solos and heroic, triumphant horn calls. Strauss, in his mid-20s, could already do it all! It's music that, even after 130 years, still keeps orchestras and conductors on very much on their mettle.

Katy Hamilton with her pick of recordings of the last and greatest of Edvard Grieg's three violin sonatas, written when the composer was living in Troldhaugen in 1886-7.